OHD/HL - Presentations/AMS Short Course

Short Course
on Quantitative Precipitation Estimation and Forecasting

Sponsored by the American Meteorological Society's Hydrology Committee

January 13, 2002
Orlando, Florida

Instructors

Richard Fulton
Hydrology Laboratory
Office of Hydrologic Development
National Weather Service
Silver Spring, Maryland
richard.fulton@noaa.gov

Norman W. Junker
Hydrometeorological Prediction Center
Nat'l Center for Environmental Prediction
National Weather Service
Camp Springs, Maryland

njunker@ncep.noaa.gov

Dr. Roderick A. Scofield
Office of Research and Applications
National Environmental Satellite,
Data, and Information Service
Camp Springs, Maryland
roderick.scofield@noaa.gov

Matthew Kelsch
Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education, and Training
University Corp. for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, Colorado
kelsch@ucar.edu

8:00 a.m.

Introduction of Instructors and Students

8:15 a.m.

Overview of operational rainfall estimation procedures - .pdf (Fulton)

Precipitation Processing System (PPS)
Multisensor Precipitation Estimator (MPE)
Stage IV Precipitation Processing

8:45 a.m.

Scientific techniques for estimating precipitation - .zip (Fulton)
Note: This file has been compressed due to its original size (46MB). Download this to a drive with sufficient space and view locally. No de-compression software is needed, file is self-executing.

Rain gauges
- Analysis techniques
- Challenges
Radar
- Measuring drop size distributions
- Reflectivity and polarimetric rain rate estimation techniques
- Quality control techniques for blockage, hail, anomalous propagation, clutter
- Correcting for range-dependent biase

9:45 a.m.

Coffee break

10:00 a.m.

Improving radar rainfall estimates using rain gauges and satellite data - .exe (Fulton)
Note: This file has been compressed due to its original size (32MB). Download this to a drive with sufficient space and view locally. No de-compression software is needed, file is self-executing.

Mosaicking of radar rainfall products
Correction techniques for mean-field and local biases
Multisensor merging techniques
Use of multisensor rainfall products in operational hydrologic models

10:30 a.m.

Review of operational satellite rainfall estimation algorithms (Scofield)

Auto-estimator
GOES Multispectral Rainfall Algorithm
Interactive Flash Flood Analyzer
Passive microwave techniques

12:00 p.m.

Lunch break

1:00 p.m.

Introduction to quantitative precipitation forecasting (QPF) (Junker)

Overview of the QPF problem
What determines the amount of precipitation that falls over a given area
How the parameterization of physical processes can impact precipitation forecasts
- Probabilistic methods
- statistical methods
- ensemble techniques

2:00 p.m.

Factors determining efficiency and rainfall intensity (Kelsch)

Precipitation intensity and duration
Precipitation efficiency
Warm versus cold rain processes

3:00 p.m.

Coffee break

3:15 p.m.

Forecasting precipitation associated with mesoscale convective systems (MCS): Part I (Junker)

Factors that determine:
- mode of development
- precipitation distribution within the MCS
- scale of a convective system

4:15 p.m.

Forecasting precipitation associated with mesoscale convective systems (MCS): Part II (Junker)

Predicting the movement of convective systems
- movement versus propagation
- operational techniques
Where does the heaviest rainfall typically occur in relationship to various parameters
How well can we predict the precipitation from an MCS

5:15 p.m.

Calibration of forecasts (Junker)

Importance of verification

5:30 p.m.

Short course ends.